Nvidia and the Problems with Closed Hardware

Here at XDA-Developers we hold very few ideas close to our hearts: Openness, new concepts, and development. These all revolve around one core principal: Technological advancement of society. Those who do not practice these concepts are generally given warnings and eventually banned from XDA.

I’ve been saying it for a long time. Nvidia and Qualcomm are the problem children of Android. Yet HTC, for some reason embraces their closed and problem-causing ways. There is quite simply no reason whatsoever for an Open Platform like Android to be reduced to running on Closed Hardware like Tegra or Snapdragon.

Closed hardware makes it difficult for developers to isolate and troubleshoot problems. You can take a look into the past, almost one year ago, when Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was released. The first fully supported processor was the Samsung Exynos, followed up quickly by the Texas Instruments OMAP, and shortly thereafter, the Samsung Hummingbird. It was quite literally months of development work, which involved getting data through official and not-so-official channels to get ICS on these closed-hardware NVIDIA and Qualcomm processors.

So, I will now end this bit of ranting by backing up Linus (father of Linux and Grandfather of Android) Torvalds by saying: “NVIDIA, F*** you,” and follow up with a “Qualcomm, F*** you too.”

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